I. Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless data networks, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for translating resource names in a wireless data network to provide efficient resource utilization.
II. Description of the Related Art
Advances in technology have resulted in the development and deployment of extensive data networks. These networks include both public data networks, such as the Internet, and specialized networks, such as wireless telecommunication networks. Users of these networks have the ability to access a wide variety of information and services that are available as network resources.
Typically, a network resource is accessed through a Universal Resource Locator (URL), which can be used to describe the location of a resource and a method or scheme for accessing it. Due to various reasons, URLs that indicate Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) based resources are widely used as references for information on the Internet. Given the broad availability of HTTP servers, it has become common practice to encode both dynamic and static information into URLs. This leads to network behavior that is more dynamic but has the disadvantage that URLs have become longer and longer in size—often to the point that they are only useable in computer software and not by humans. Another disadvantage of long URLs is that they require the network to have a certain amount of transmission capacity in order to transmit them efficiently.
One example where transmission capacity is limited is in a wireless network environment. In wireless environments, a variety of portable cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and paging devices may communicate over a wireless network. The wireless network may also include network servers that couple the wireless network to a public network, such as the Internet. This allows resources on the public network to be made available to wireless devices on the wireless network.
However, long URLs used in the public network are often too long to transmit in practical sized transport methods used in the wireless environment. For example, in a wireless environment transport methods such as the Short Message System (SMS) transport, the Short Data Burst (SDB) method of CDMA2000, or other low cost communication control channel transport methods, such as a paging channel, are used. Instead, long URLs must be transported in a wireless environment using more expensive dedicated traffic channels. This results in less efficient resource utilization, which translates into higher costs and possibly decreased system performance.
Therefore, what is needed is a way to transmit resource names to devices in a wireless environment that makes efficient use of the limited resources available, thereby increasing efficiency and lowering costs.